10 Movies Where God Intervenes

Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia may be overshadowed by his headline-grabbing work like Boogie Nights and more mainstream offerings like There Will Be Blood, but it is nevertheless the jewel in the director's crown, offering up a sprawling tale of modern life in the San Fernando Valley that manages scale and subtlety in unison.

The film features a knot of narrative threads that spin tales of a police officer in love (John C. Reilly), an insecure ex-boy genius (William H. Macy), and a pickup artist-cum-motivational speaker (Tom Cruise), amongst many, many others. Their lives don't intersect so much as graze each other, often running parallel and only converging for the briefest moments of tension and release, as Magnolia builds to a truly unexpected crescendo. 

God sends a Biblical rain of frogs in the film's final sequence, intervening in all of the ensemble cast's personal dramas and shifting the delicate balance of their relationships and fortunes. This miracle prevents a suicide, reconciles families and saves an innocent man, and while the ending is bittersweet and far from conclusive, the very human nature of it all makes this the best intervention of all.